Sheep shearer

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A sheep shearer is a worker who uses (hand-powered)-blade or machine shears to remove the wool from sheep.

In most countries with large sheep populations the shearer is one of a team of contractors that go from place to place shearing sheep and preparing the wool for marketing. The shearer collects the sheep from a holding pen, arranges it on the cutting floor and operates the shearing hand-piece. The wool is removed by following an efficient set of movements. In the case of powered shears the movements were largely devised by Godfrey Bowen (the Bowen Technique).

Gun shearers are highly-talented professional shearers who can shear more than 200 sheep per day, using powered shears, day after day. Herds of 4000 or more can only be shorn by large teams of fast or "gun" shearers working 9-hour days. Gun shearers using hand-operated shears can achieve much lower numbers, about 50 to 70 a day.

On 10 October 1892, Jackie Howe set a record of 321 sheep shorn in seven hours and 40 minutes, using hand-shears. He had previously set a weekly aggragate reocord of 1,437 sheep over a total working week of 44 hours and 30 minutes.

While Howe's weekly aggragate record remained until at least 2005, his daily record was broken using machine shears by Ted Reick in 1950. In competition sports shearers, using both types of hand-pieces, can achieve short-term rates that are 3 to 5 times greater than for day shearers.